34. Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Four
Viper
Day Eight
I find him slipping in through one of the lower access points near the old storage tunnels, moving with practiced silence, his shoulders tucked, head low.
And for a second, all I can see is the version of him he used to be.
Black clothes, black gloves, and a black scarf over the lower half of his face. He looks stripped down to sharp edges and old instincts.
Blaze sees me and freezes.
I say nothing.
His eyes narrow, and he drags the scarf down with a huff. "You just going to stand there all creepy, or what?"
"What were you doing?"
He leans one shoulder against the wall like I've simply caught him on an evening stroll. "Couldn’t sleep."
I let my gaze drag over the dirt on his sleeve, the pine needles caught in the fabric, and the mud drying across one knee. "Uh-huh."
Blaze sighs. "You’re annoying."
"What were you doing?" I repeat, cocking my brow.
His mouth twists like he’ll keep lying just to be difficult, but then some of the fight leaves him, and he rises from his faux casual lean.
"I’ve been going out past the tree line at the base of the mountain," he says.
I wait.
"Setting traps."
Still, I say nothing.
Blaze scowls at me. "What, you want an itemized list?"
"No."
He folds his arms. "They’re good traps."
"I know. You don’t do shit work, brother."
The praise catches him off guard.
I step closer, lowering my voice. "What's got you up to your old habits?"
There’s dirt under his nails, and his eyes look wilder than they did before he left the nest.
His jaw shifts as he shrugs. "Gotta be doing something."
The words come out rougher than he means them to. He looks away down the corridor, toward the faint gray light gathering at the slit windows.
"I know guarding Halley matters," he says. "I know it does. I’m not saying it doesn’t." His throat works. "But I’m wasting time sitting in rooms where people just talk and talk. Every hour I sit there while the enemy closes in, I feel like I’m losing it. I'm not built to stay still, you know?"
I do know because I'm the same. I feel an itch to get back to being a soldier, instead of doing mindless busywork. I want to be doing what I'm best at, bloodying my knuckles and sniping Humans.
"I feel like I’m letting all of you down," Blaze adds in a small voice.
I study him.
Blaze makes people look at the chaos first. The smirk, the violence, the mouth that never learned when to shut up.
I know better. A part of him is stuck as a child, frozen at the age his father burned him alive, or maybe at the age of his first solo kill, alone behind enemy lines.
He needs structure and a firm presence to make him feel secure.
That's usually provided by Knox or Shade, but they've been busy.
Add in a lack of direction, and Blaze is lost.
It's my turn to step up for my brother and give him what he needs.
"You’re not letting anyone down," I say.
His eyes flick back to mine.
"And the traps were a smart idea."
Some of the tightness in his face eases, though he tries not to show it. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
He looks down, almost embarrassed by the pride flushing his cheeks, and I have to bite back a smile.
Now I understand Shade a little better.
Blaze can gut a man without blinking, but praise from someone he loves makes him lower his eyes and turn sweet. There’s power in that. Delicious, filthy power.
Then I add, "You should have told me."
"Were you going to help?"
"Nah, that's your thing. You don’t need me stomping around and ruining the artistry."
That earns me the grin he was trying not to give.
"Could always use a hand digging pits." He shrugs.
Memories of his past pit traps flash through my mind. Spikes buried under leaves with soil packed loose around the edges. A killing ground disguised as untouched forest. It’s a brutal way to die, and Blaze builds every trap with terrifying care.
We start walking, our boots thudding against stone in sync.
After a few steps, I say, "Shade has a job for us."
Blaze goes still beside me. "Us?"
I nod.
"What's the job?"
"He says it's important. He's been quietly working on it for the past few days."
"That tells me nothing."
"It wasn’t meant to."
He makes a face at that, but keeps pace, waiting for me to elaborate.
I'm thinking of withholding more from him, making it a bit of a game, but I'd like to sleep again in the near future.
If I don't tell him, he'll terrorize me in some new, fucked-up way.
I don't fancy a new scar in the shape of a question mark carved into my thigh.
"Shade found a way to use the terrain. Knox agreed, but doesn't want anyone else to know. Not even Halley. Says he doesn't want her burdened with keeping a secret from the war council. Guess he figures it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission."
"Halley isn't going to like that," Blaze says, but he doesn't disagree with Knox's assessment.
"No, she isn't."
Keeping this from Halley sits wrong, but I understand the reason, even if I don’t like it. Halley is under so much strain that we can't be sure one more issue won't make her snap.
"Sounds like my kind of mission. Off the books and morally questionable," Blaze says, his steps lighter at the prospect of a juicy new objective.
If he thinks he likes the sound of it so far, he's about to cream his pants.
"They need people who know explosives well enough to get one shot right."
Blaze’s whole posture changes, his head whipping to look at me with wide, hopeful eyes.
"Explosives?"
"Yep."
"Boom?"
I nod. "Boom."
"What are we hitting?" he asks, rubbing his hands together excitedly.
I look ahead. "You’ll know when we get there."
His smile creeps back in, meaner this time. "So it’s something we definitely shouldn't be exploding."
"Yes."
"Dangerous?"
I give him a flat look.
His smile widens. "Brilliant."
By the time we make it back to the nest, the fortress has settled into its uneasy pre-dawn silence.
Halley is tucked between Knox and Shade, with one hand curled in Knox’s shirt and her cheek pressed against Shade’s shoulder.
Knox is already awake, keeping watch while our mate sleeps. He takes one look at us, clocks the mud on Blaze’s clothes, and rolls his eyes.
Blaze strips down to his underwear and crawls in carefully, wriggling his way between Shade and Halley until he’s tucked between them.
Through the bond, I feel the restless spark under his skin dim when Halley shifts toward him with a sleepy sound.
He holds still as she settles against his chest, and all that violent energy goes quiet under the simple weight of being wanted.
I stand there longer than I mean to, taking in the sight of my Pack in the nest together for the first time in days.
Halley is safe, Shade is warm against her, Blaze is still for once, and Knox is watching over all of us.
The sight settles the restless Alpha in me, even with Shade’s plan waiting for us at dawn.
I strip off my boots and clothes, then slide in next to Knox.
‘I’ll take watch,’ I tell him through the bond so I don't wake the others. ‘Get some rest.’
I expect him to argue, but he only grunts in thanks, shifts closer to Halley, and starts snoring a few breaths later. He must've been exhausted, but stubbornly refusing to leave our den unguarded.
Sleep doesn’t come for me. I lie awake with the scent of my Pack filling the room and the map burned into my thoughts, the section of mountain Shade circled waiting for us in the dark. The peace won’t last long. I know that. So I let myself have it while I can.
When dawn reaches the den, I drag Blaze from the nest before the fortress fully wakes.
We leave the den quietly, with Halley still asleep under Shade’s arm and Knox watching us go with grim approval.
By the time the first light reaches the mountains, we’re in the truck with the gear packed in back, coils of Kevlar rope stacked beside the explosives, and Blaze practically vibrating in the passenger seat.
Now that I think about it, I’m genuinely surprised that between Blaze’s rope fixation and Knox’s control issues, Halley hasn’t ended up suspended from the ceiling yet. The thought gives me one more reason to make it through this war alive.
I’d like to live to see that.
I drive us down the road from Blackgate in silence. Blaze lasts less than five minutes before his knee starts bouncing and his fingers tap against the door.
Shade’s marked point sits halfway down the mountain road, above the narrowest section of the Pass.
"Do you think we have enough to blow a proper hole?"
"Yes. Shade calculated it, so it's right." I trust Shade's skills with numbers as much as I trust him to watch my back in combat. The Beta doesn't miss details.
When we reach the marker on the map, I pull onto a narrow shelf of rock at the side of the mountain road and kill the engine.
The Pass cuts through the mountain below us, narrow between two walls of stone, and Shade's target runs along the cliff face beneath the road.
Blaze climbs out, slams the door, and heads for the back to start hauling equipment.
He straps into the harness with quick, efficient movements, then looks over the edge and lets out a low whistle.
"There are going to be some pissed-off folk if we do this."
"Probably."
His smile turns wicked. "Good."
I tug on gloves, anchor the main line to the truck, loop the backup around my waist, and clip the carabiner to Blaze’s harness. I check each lock twice before I tug the rope hard.
I can abseil when I have to, but I’m not too proud to admit that Blaze is more nimble than I am, basically a cat in the way he likes to climb things, so I didn't protest when he demanded to be the one to place the charges.
Blaze backs up until his heels dangle over the edge of the cliff.
He cocks his head, adjusting the bag of explosives strapped to his chest for easy access. "You think Shade knows how insane this is?"
"Yes."
"That’s comforting."
"It shouldn’t be, you psycho."
Blaze steps backward over the edge with a cackle, and the rope snaps tight across my gloves as his weight drops.
It isn't until I'm standing at the edge, staring down at Blaze disappearing into the darkness of the empty Pass below, that I finally understand Shade's plan.
This isn't to help us win the war.
It's to protect what is most important when we lose.